by Dale Mayer
“Yeah, that would be good,” he said. “Get any of the witnesses to take another look.”
She nodded. “I’m working on one of the paint programs to try to get the color right. And add a few dents, if I can.” She laughed. “Everybody seems to remember it was dented, but nobody could really say where the dents were.”
“And, of course, nobody ever has a picture,” he said.
“Always,” she said, with a shrug.
She headed back to her desk and brought up several of the old Chevys around in the 1960s. She printed it off when the model changed in ’63 and then another for the few tweaks made in ’67. Other than that, she had four different prints in color. She had to send them to a different part of the office, since they didn’t have a color printer in their area. With that done and the printed copies in hand, she headed back to the files for the witnesses’ phone numbers and contacted a couple previous witnesses. She got through to two, who agreed to let her email them some photos of trucks.
She fired off the emails and, while on the phone with one woman, said, “Okay, so do you recognize any of these as the truck?”
“Honestly I don’t remember,” she muttered. “It all happened so fast. The color seems right, but I don’t know about the truck.”
“Okay, is there anything about the truck that you think isn’t right?”
“The front,” she said. “The grille on the front. I think it was more vertical looking. The ridges were sticking up somehow.”
“Okay, good enough. Thank you.”
The second one said something similar but wasn’t sure about the color. Even by the time she left messages for the third and fourth witnesses, Kate knew it was probably a long shot and wouldn’t come anywhere close to giving her more details. Then she moved on to the second drive-by case and contacted anybody associated with that one. Another four witnesses had seen the shooting, and, by the time she phoned them and had them take a look at the truck photos, she was pretty bummed because she wasn’t making any progress.
Rodney looked over at her, shrugged, and said, “You know that it’s really hard for people to remember details of vehicles, unless they’re car buffs.”
She nodded. “And what are the chances that any of these people were one?” she muttered. She still had a couple more, and, just when she was running out of options, she got an email back from one of the ones she had emailed the photos to.
It was the second one. But the dent was in the front, and there was damage to the grille. I remember that specifically because, at the time, I was dealing with a problem with my own grille, and I thought he must have smacked his up too.
She picked up the phone and called him and asked, “Did you put that in your statement?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but seeing that picture reminded me.”
“Good enough,” she said. “Any chance it jogged any other information you can think of?”
His tone was thoughtful when he said, “I’m looking at the picture now. The color is close but not quite right. It was a long time ago. But that’s an odd color.”
“Do you think it was a custom paint job?”
“No,” he said, “I doubt it. I’m not sure it’s quite the paint that was used in that year though.”
“Right, I can get the manufacturer to give me a better idea on the colors back then.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it was also, you know, I hate to say faded, but it was faded.”
“So, maybe just old paint?”
“Well, it was definitely old paint,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. It’s close to this, but it’s not exactly.” Then he asked, “Why are you worried about this now?”
“It’s not that I’m worried about it now,” she said, “but we’ve had another drive-by shooting, and there are a few similarities.”
“That son of a bitch,” he said. “He gets away with it once and then tries a second time?”
“Which is why we’re checking everything again,” she said.
“This one was really funny. He drove up slow to a bunch of people on the sidewalk,” he said. “I was on the opposite side of the road, and, as he drove up, it was like he was just looking for somebody. Searching the crowd maybe.”
“Meaning, it was targeted?”
“Well, targeted somewhat, like, you know, if there had been a group of six kids, I got the feeling he might still have picked out a kid from that group. It’s like he was looking for something or for someone to fit, and that one was close enough. He just fired off a bunch of shots, and he tore out of there. I don’t remember the whole license plate, but there was something with a G in it.”
At that, her eyebrows shot up. “I’ve got your statement here. There was no mention of seeing the license plate.”
“No, because I couldn’t see the whole thing,” he said, “and I didn’t think that a lone G would help.”
“Well, it’s something,” she said, and she started typing her notes. “And it would give us an idea. I mean, I can run that down for any of the trucks of that vintage and see if something comes up.”
Her witness added, “I didn’t think it was much help. Sorry about that. But it really pissed me off, you know, the way the guy just didn’t give a shit, and then he just killed that young guy. We always wondered if that young guy had been the intended target in the first place or not.”
“We’d like to think so because otherwise we could have some asshat just running around, shooting people. Now three years later,” she said, “it’s possible he’s doing it again.”
He swore at that and said, after a moment, “Part of the problem is also that I think they were using different parts from different trucks.”
“What do you mean?”
“I remember thinking at the time that the driver’s door wasn’t from the right model of truck,” he said, “but again, I don’t remember more details about it. Once the shooting started, everything else fled my mind.”
“Good enough,” she said. “You’ve been a great help, thank you.”
“Well, I sure hope you find the shooter. The last thing we want is to have somebody else get mowed down just because they were walking on the sidewalk.”
“Is that what you think the reason was?” she asked curiously.
“I have no idea,” he said. “It probably was something much more involved than that, but it didn’t make any sense. He just looked like he was searching for a target. In this case I think that guy was not so much the one he was looking for but one that would fit the mold, you know?” And, with that, the guy rang off.
She sat back, turned to Rodney, and said, “That was an interesting conversation.” And she relayed the information he’d provided.
Rodney nodded. “Some guys are really good at picking out car parts,” he said. “And, if that’s the way it appeared to him, that’s good to know.”
“But,” Kate replied, “it also means that, if there is a connection between the two cases, this guy has waited three years to do this again. Why?”
“Well, maybe the first time he got so panicked that he took off, waiting for the cops to come to his door. When we didn’t make a connection, he got cocky again,” he muttered. “Sometimes it takes them a while to work up the nerve to try again. Maybe something made him angry, and he’s looking for a target. Who knows?”
“Which would make him a random serial killer,” she muttered, shaking her head. “That would be depressing.”
“More than depressing,” he said, “he’d be hard to stop because we need more than just a vehicle. That vehicle could go into a garage and be completely unseen for the next three years.”
“And, if that’s the case,” she said, “the insurance on it won’t be his either. This one witness mentioned a license plate with the letter G on it.”
Rodney shrugged. “You can run it,” he said, “but you’ll get way too many options.”
“But maybe not with these other details,” she said. Determined, she started to
run a match through the license plate database, checking to see what might pop up. She could ask Reese to do this too, but—as the one analyst shared among all three VPD Homicide Units—she was swamped, and Kate liked to find out information herself. She was quite surprised when, a few moments later, it spat out a list of matching vehicles. “Now this is interesting,” she said, “there’s only forty-two. I was expecting three times that or more. But one of them is flagged as stolen.”
Immediately Rodney got up and walked over. “Which one was stolen?” She pointed it out to him. “Follow that up,” he said with a frown, “because that could easily be the one we’re looking for.”
She frowned at that. “But, in this case, do you think he stole the truck or just the license plate and put it on his truck?”
He shook his head. “No idea, but either way it would be good to know, right?”
She followed up, and, by the time she reached the person who owned the truck that had been stolen, she ended up getting his son.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My dad passed away last year. It was his truck. He had kept it in the garage, uninsured for a long time.”
“Uninsured?” she asked.
“Yes, up until not too long before it was stolen. Out of the blue he decided to get it insured and to clean it up a bit, maybe to sell it. He knew his health wasn’t good, and he was trying to take care of things, so my mom didn’t get left with all that to deal with. Of course he left it too late, and, by the time he dealt with the truck, he was already in poor health.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said.
“Well, at least he enjoyed his last few years.”
“And there was never any news on your stolen vehicle?”
“Nope,” he said. “We weren’t exactly sure what happened to it. We got up one day, and it was gone.”
“So, it was kept in the garage?”
He answered clearly. “Yes, it was kept in the garage, and my dad hadn’t taken it out in years. So I’m not even sure who would have known it was there.”
“And, of course, if the garage door was closed—”
“Well, it was supposed to be, but I’m not sure,” he said.
“So it’s possible somebody saw it there?”
“Yes, and it’s quite possible that someone walked in, started it up, and drove it out of there. Both my parents are hard of hearing. They didn’t like the hearing aids, so they’d take them out as early in the evening as they could.”
“Right,” she said, “so stealing this vehicle wouldn’t have been that difficult.”
“No,” he said. “Not at all.”
“What about the license plate?” she asked.
“My dad’s name is George, and he ended up with one that had a G at the beginning.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Do you happen to know the rest of the plate numbers?” She looked down at the list in front of her.
He said, “I don’t, but I have it right here. Just a second.” Moments later he reeled it off for her.
“Perfect, that lines up with what I’ve got here.”
“Does that mean you found the truck?”
She hesitated. “No, but it could very well mean it was used to commit a crime.”
The younger man on the other end of the phone gasped. “Well, if that’s the case,” he said, “I’m really glad my dad is not around to hear it. It would break his heart to think of his old baby being used that way.”
“Well, we’re not sure just yet,” she said, “but we’re doing our best to track it down.”
“Good luck,” he said. “Give me a call if I can help in some way.”
“Was it dented?”
“The front grille had a dent,” he said. “It wasn’t too bad, and Dad was looking at replacing the parts. But, as it turned out, they were quite expensive, according to my father, so he had decided to sell it as is.”
“Okay, what about the doors? The same model as the vehicle itself?”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Oh my, how did you know? My dad replaced one of the doors on it. I don’t even know where he got it, but it could have been at one of the pick-and-pull places, I’ll bet.”
“Good enough,” she said. “Thanks for your help.”
And, with that, she rang off, then looked at Rodney and said, “Bull’s-eye.”
He grinned. “Well, that’s interesting. So we have a stolen vehicle, likely used in the first drive-by from three years ago. Now we need to corroborate that information and then confirm if it was used in the second one, the recent one.”
“I hear you,” she said. “I’ll get there.” She looked over at him. “What are you working on?”
“The victims,” he said. “While you were working on that, I figured I’d drill down on the victims to see if any connection was there.”
“That’s a good idea. It seems so strange to think that, if you had this need to kill somebody, you would go pick a complete stranger off the street.”
“But, if you think about it,” Lilliana said, from her desk behind them, “it’s the easiest way to not get caught. If there’s no connection, there’s nothing for us to find.”
Kate frowned at that but nodded. When her computer chimed to say an email had come in, she popped it open and sat back with a low whistle.
“What’s up?” Andy asked, as he walked into the bullpen area, starting his day late, probably from all the time he spent on his hair. Or maybe it was a kid-related thing. “That was an interesting whistle.”
She looked up at him but was a little disconnected over what she’d seen. “Remember that email I got yesterday?” she asked, and the others looked at her.
“The one with the picture of you at the bridge?” Andy guessed.
“Yeah,” she said, with a nod. “I’m not sure what the hell is going on, but I just got another email.”
“What does this one say?” Lilliana asked, getting up and walking over to take a look. She too whistled when she saw it. “Well, that’s a strange thing to put in the subject line.”
It said Maybe not and attached a picture of a bridge and another pair of shoes.
“You’re not in this one,” Rodney murmured, joining them around Kate’s desk.
“No,” she said, “I’m not. I don’t know anything about it, like what bridge this is or when this was taken,” she said. But then she looked at it again and said, “Wait. A time stamp’s on the photo. It’s from this morning.”
“Wow, let’s check to see if we had another suicide this morning,” Lilliana said, looking at the date stamp. “Why the hell is he sending this to you?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said, “and what is ‘maybe not’ supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know either,” Lilliana said, “but I don’t like it. Send that around to all of us, so we can each take a good look. Let’s get on the horn and check if anybody’s gotten notice of a suicide. Anybody recognize that bridge?”
“I wondered if it was the Port Mann,” Rodney said. “But not enough of it is in the photo to tell. And the other email didn’t have a message, did it?”
Kate said, “No, it didn’t. At least not that I saw, but we better check.” She brought up the first email and cast it to a big projector on the front wall. “Can anyone see one?”
Rodney got up, walked over, and pointed. “Do you guys see this?”
At the bottom of the first picture, blending into part of the bridge railing, it read Finally.
Immediately Kate cast the second photograph to the big wall screen and asked her team, “Is there anything on this one?”
They all looked, and then Rodney shook his head. “No, but, if he thinks you didn’t see his note on the first one, he put it in the subject line of the second one to be sure you did this time. So it’s ‘finally’ and ‘maybe not,’ right?”
“Maybe not what though?” Owen asked, listening in to the whole conversation, and now speaking up.
“I don’t know,” Kate said, as they stared at her. She ru
bbed her temples. “This doesn’t make any sense.” She double-checked the sender. “This is from the same email address.”
“And, if you send a reply, it’ll go somewhere right into cyberspace,” Andy muttered.
“But that doesn’t mean our cybersecurity team shouldn’t check it out anyway,” Lilliana warned. “And now that you’ve got a second one, you better let Colby know.”
Again Kate nodded. “I really don’t need this right now,” she muttered. “I was happily working along on the drive-by case.”
Just then, Colby walked in, usually the last one on each shift. “Hey, what about that drive-by? Did you catch a break on it?”
“I don’t know if it’s a break as much as another distraction,” Kate said.
“Oh, now there’s an interesting point.” Lilliana spun on her heels and looked at Kate.
Kate stared at her teammate and shook her head. “No, I don’t think these emails are connected at all to the drive-bys,” she said, her mind immediately puzzling away on it. “How could they be?”
“Hey, hang on a minute,” Colby said. “Does somebody want to fill me in here? What’s happening?”
Rodney spoke up first. “She got another email.”
He turned to look at Kate and asked, “Another picture of you?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s what’s weird about it. It’s not of me at all, but it looks like it’s another bridge scene and potentially the aftermath of another suicide.”
At that, Colby’s eyebrows shot right up. When she pointed and cast the second emailed picture on the wall screen again, he turned. He moved closer to it and said, frowning, “That’s the Second Narrows Bridge.”
She shrugged. “And it’s a photo of a pair of men’s work boots, so that would imply a man had gone off the bridge.”
“That’s the theory,” Colby said. “I don’t know how many people planning to commit suicide would put somebody else’s shoes there.”
“But why send that photograph to me?” Kate asked.
“And then you have to consider the message,” Rodney said.
“What message?” Colby asked.
“We didn’t see it at first,” Kate said, “but Rodney just saw now, on that initial photograph. Written at the bottom by the railing it says ‘finally.’ And on today’s photo, there’s no message on the photograph, at least none that we can see, but ‘maybe not’ is in the subject line of the email.”
